The Insufferable Mr. Brooks

There are a group of "Davids" in the public sector who are on this site’s Merde List, and the one I’m interested in flogging this afternoon is the one who, if riding on a high horse whilst maintaining perfectly pursed lips were a sport, this David would be league MVP. I’m referring to David Brooks. Although this article he wrote yesterday does not, for once, spray drops of derision upon this site’s namesake, it nonetheless rusts my spurs, because it epitomizes the snobbery of elitists who so dislike being challenged by less credentialed folk. A rebuttal worthy of space in the Wall Street Journal, it is not, but the internet is the ultimate visual medium and while those more intelligent that I can wield words like scalpels, I am content with using a slingshot of gifs aimed the heads of these self important Goliaths.

"Though obviously terrifically bright, he could not successfully work his way through the institution of high school. Then he failed to navigate his way through community college."

That sentence has more snobbery dripping from it than Peggy Noonan at a NASCAR race in summer.

"When a neighbor in Hawaii tried to introduce himself, Snowden cut him off and made it clear he wanted no neighborly relationships."

Girl, get out! He was rude to a neighbor!? Holy chocolate donuts, we should burn him.

"If you live a life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society, perhaps it makes sense to see the world a certain way: Life is not embedded in a series of gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, state, nation and world. Instead, it’s just the solitary naked individual and the gigantic and menacing state."

I mean, can it not be both?

"This lens makes you more likely to share the distinct strands of libertarianism that are blossoming in this fragmenting age: the deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect, the fervent devotion to transparency, the assumption that individual preference should be supreme."

Amen to all those things

"But Big Brother is not the only danger facing the country. Another is the rising tide of distrust, the corrosive spread of cynicism, the fraying of the social fabric and the rise of people who are so individualistic in their outlook that they have no real understanding of how to knit others together and look after the common good."

Do tell, Mr. Brooks! But fill out your bracket, first.

"For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things."

I think that train has long ago left that station, Mr. Brooks.

"He betrayed honesty and integrity, the foundation of all cooperative activity."

Skips down memory lane…

“I remember distinctly an image of–we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,” Brooks says, “and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”

Sometimes, the F bomb is warranted. I really can’t add more to this.

"He betrayed his friends. Anybody who worked with him will be suspect. Young people in positions like that will no longer be trusted with responsibility for fear that they will turn into another Snowden."

Right, just like a cranky old battle axe from Arizona will give older politicians a bad rap and prevent them from being re-elected. #BecauseLogic

"He betrayed his employers. Booz Allen and the C.I.A. took a high-school dropout and offered him positions with lavish salaries. He is violating the honor codes of all those who enabled him to rise."

I call that "assumption of the risk," Amiright, Joe?

"He betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there is a leak like this, the powers that be close the circle of trust a little tighter. They limit debate a little more."

"He betrayed the privacy of us all. If federal security agencies can’t do vast data sweeps, they will inevitably revert to the older, more intrusive eavesdropping methods."

Right, Snowden betrayed the privacy of us all. Not the data mining, eavesdropping, eye of Sauron NSA.

"He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed. Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic structures of accountability, putting his own preferences above everything else."

Right, well they also didn’t just throw in the 1st, 4th and 10th Amendments for farts and giggles, either, Mr. Brooks

"Judging by his comments reported in the news media so far, Snowden was obsessed with the danger of data mining but completely oblivious to his betrayals and toward the damage he has done to social arrangements and the invisible bonds that hold them together."

I do declare, Mr. Brooks appears to have the vapors.

Not over NSA spying, mind you, but damage to social arrangements. #Priorities